Please Don't Leave Me
by applestooapples
Summary: Yumi was always going to belong to Sachiko-Touko knows this, she DOES. So she accepts Yumi's rosary, because if she can't hold the place in her heart that she wants to, at least she can still mean something to the girl she loves more than anything. But as every person who's ever read a bad teen romance knows, things aren't always as they seem. Yumi/Touko, with side pairings.


**So I'm giving Marimite another try—I'm kind of lost in life right now, and one thing I don't want to lose is my writing or the pairings I love. So here goes nothing—please leave a review, it motivates me to continue.**

**The pairing is Yumi/Touko—I've been rewatching the anime and while I like Sachiko, right now, at least, Touko seems like a more attractive character to me, especially when you take her better characteristics into consideration. So I wanted to try and write a fanfiction of them that hopefully will not turn out depressing and/or tragic (because Dark!fics are apparently 'in' right now and I'm so sick of them that if I get excited about **_**one more fanfiction **_**and read it until the last few chapters just to discover that someone fucking **_**dies**_**, I am going to rip out my corneas), and maybe add in some other pairings too. Writing helps me to feel like I have a purpose, and when it's a pairing I like, it makes me happy. So hopefully, this will make you guys happy too.**

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**oOOOo**

**Please Don't Leave Me**

**Prologue: & I'll Fight For Second Best**

_**applestooapples**_

**oOOOo**

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Jealousy is an ugly emotion.

Or at least, so she's been told.

To be perfectly honest, she doesn't think she'd mind if her onee-sama was a bit more like Sachiko-sama, who foams at the mouth whenever Satou Sei, the previous Rosa Gigantea, is around.

She will, however, agree that it isn't a particularly pleasant emotion to _feel_.

Touko-chan has always been the jealous type. But it isn't her fault, not really. If _anyone _has ever had the right to be jealous, it's her, after all. Not Sachiko-sama, who's always had everything she ever wanted handed to her on a silver platter (and if she has to listen to her huffing about how she doesn't _understand _Yumi _one more time_, she thinks she might slap her, because Yumi was handed to her as well—it's just that she can't control her like she does her maids and her books and, before all that, her dolls, and Sachiko doesn't like feeling helpless). Not Noriko, who's constantly sulking about how her onee-sama treats her like she would a cute child (Touko kind of wants to slap her, too, because how dare she complain when she's got all the time in the world to change that? When she's the only person in Shimako-sama's eyes?).

Everything Touko's ever loved has been snatched out from beneath her, and she's left more broken each time, like one of those tablecloth tricks gone wrong. By the time she'd met Yumi, she'd been so completely shattered that she honestly didn't think she could ever put herself back together if she fell apart even one more time.

So she'd antagonized Yumi—stolen _her _most beloved thing when she hadn't risen to the bait—but all it left her with was the sick feeling of guilt gnawing away at her stomach, because even _then_, Yumi hadn't struck back. She'd just cried—fallen into Sei's arms and hidden her face from herself and Sachiko-sama—and Touko had wanted to tell her that it doesn't work. That the whole '_if I can't see you then you can't see me_' bit is just wishful thinking. She should know.

But she hadn't.

She hadn't, and the next time she saw Yumi, the girl was wearing that stupid _smile _again, like her precious onee-sama hadn't just been swept out from beneath her feet. She just smiled and smiled and _smiled _that _infuriating _smile and _damn her_, because at some point, Touko had actually started to _care_.

She'd started to care about the person she'd once seen as an enemy—as a competitor for Sachiko-sama's love. She'd started to _like _another person (another flaky, indecisive person who would inevitably throw the word 'love' around like a softball), and what's worse, she knew from the _start _that Yumi would be yet another thing taken from her—yet another precious toy, just _gone._

Because Yumi's heart was always going to belong to Sachiko, whatever the girl decided to do with it.

And though she's known this (she _has_) from the beginning, she can't help but look at the girl she once admired more than anything with something dangerously close to jealousy when she casually wipes Yumi's cheek or fixes her bow or chides her for something she hasn't actually done wrong.

Because it's Sachiko's way of showing love. It's the most obvious thing in the world to Touko that Sachiko's world revolves around Yumi—that she'll do absolutely anything for her, and that it's just a matter of time until she calls off the wedding (because really, everyone knows she will in the end, and that this back and forth is just causing everyone unnecessary grief. But that's Sachiko) to their ragingly homosexual cousin. Yumi, by some godsend, hasn't managed to put two and two together just yet, but every day feels like a countdown to Touko, and the worst part is that she doesn't have any idea when the light bulb will go off—doesn't know how many more months (days, hours) she has before she loses the one person she _believes_ when she says she loves her too.

It's not losing Yumi that frustrates her (it hurts, yes, but it's always going to be that way, because Sachiko's always going to be the one who got her first); it's the not knowing she can't stand. If she were just given a _number_, she could cling to Yumi until the last possible second and treasure every moment without having to worry about exactly which moment would be the last.

Most people, she supposes, wouldn't want to know. They'd want to pretend that they'd win in the end—that they could somehow change the future. But Touko doesn't want to feel like people do when they realize they're about to die in some horrible, unforeseen way, like in a car crash or a bank robbery—doesn't want to have to spend the precious little time she has left wondering whether she'll get to Yumi in time to tell her all the things she hasn't said. To Touko, not knowing is like having a major project coming a year in advance, but not getting the actual assignment until the day before it's due.

A whole year of anxiety, wasted on an assignment that she was never going to pass to begin with.

This is why she gets so jealous of Sachiko—why she wants to slap the girl when she brushes Yumi off or makes her cry. Because Sachiko has all the time in the world to apologize and to make Yumi laugh and to tell her the things she hasn't said, and it just _burns _her up to see Sachiko taking her fine time because she knows this too.

Somewhere deep, _deep _inside (past all the grody fat and veins and other things they teach you about in health class), Touko knows she can't, in all fairness, fault Sachiko for this—after all, if she were in Sachiko's position, she'd be in no hurry to confess to, and possibly lose, Yumi.

(Here, of course, she's attempting to look through Sachiko's eyes, because everyone else with two brain cells to rub together can see that there's about as much risk of _that _happening as there is of a halfway intelligent person coming into political power.)

But at this point, Touko doesn't particularly care about fairness (because when has life ever been fair to _her_?) and Touko _does _fault Sachiko, and Touko _is _angry about the way she's managed to bypass every Aesop thrown her way (whatever happened to the tale of the poor little rich girl who was hand-served everything but love? Not that Sachiko doesn't deserve love—and Touko loves her, she _does_ ((you can love someone and occasionally want to smack them silly, right?))—but no matter what Sachiko thinks, Yumi was handed to her just like everything else in her life). And most of all, Touko _is _jealous. But who among us can fault her if she's a little possessive after having everything she's ever loved eventually taken away?

And she doesn't even mind all that, not really; it's just that she'd _willingly _lose all that over and over again if she could just hold half the place in Yumi's heart that Sachiko does. All she wants (what she wants more than anything) is Yumi—is to hold Yumi the way Sachiko does, both physically and emotionally. That isn't too much to ask for, is it? If she's only ever allowed to cling onto _one _thing in this world without fear of it being gone, she'll choose Yumi in a heartbeat.

So who can fault Touko for being jealous that her cousin captured Yumi in a heartbeat, even before she knew she existed? Who could fault her if she maybe hated Sachiko, just a little bit, for making her believe that precious things don't always disappear and then selfishly holding onto the one thing Touko wants (needs, but she won't ever admit it) more than anything because she can't stand to have even _one _thing taken from _her?_

Sachiko was (is) a hypocrite, but so is Touko.

And there isn't any point in fighting it, or in being bitter over it, even, because Yumi was never going to be hers. Sachiko was always going to win. The most Touko can ask from Yumi is her continued presence in her life, and at this point, she really doesn't have a right to request even that.

She hates that Sachiko makes Yumi cry, and yet she sends Yumi running into those very arms the first chance she gets. And for what? Her pride? Her _safety_? What a joke—because she's not already neck-deep in risk of being broken again.

It's this realization that sends her into Yumi's arms, sobbing like a child, begging for another chance—begging to be her petite soeur, because she has to accept that it's the most she can ever be.

Yumi, of course, accepts—she doesn't know why she thought she might not—and starts crying as well. She assures Touko that they're happy tears, to which Touko scoffs, because one smiles when one is happy, and cries when one is sad. Whoever heard of a smile of sadness?

Yumi doesn't respond, instead choosing to giggle and call Touko adorable (which Touko vehemently denies, all the while wearing a blush that could rival those of the girl in front of her) before gathering her into her arms and squeezing tight. Hesitant arms find their way around Yumi's back in return, and Touko is disgusted to find that her hands are shaking, and that the tears spilling from her own eyes might not be a direct result of sadness, either (she's too proud to admit it, though—and besides, it's not like they're 'happy tears' either. If anything, she's relieved that she's managed to secure a place in Yumi's world for herself, whether it's the place she'd prefer or not. At least for now, she thinks, she can stop _thinking _and just let Yumi ((onee-sama, now—Touko bites back a giggle at the thought of Yumi being _anyone's_ elegant, refined older sister, let alone hers)) stroke her hair a little longer).

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Jealousy is an ugly emotion.

But of all the sins in this world, Touko decides it can't _possibly _be the ugliest, not when there are murderers and rapists and door-to-door Mormons running rampant through the streets.

And even if it is, and even if it means she doesn't deserve her onee-sama's love or even a shot at it, Touko _will_ fight for second best and _Maria-sama _help herif she's going to let someone take _that _from her as well.

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**A/N: This is the most depressing this story will hopefully ever reach in one chapter—I like some comedy or fluff to break up the angst. The whole fanfic won't read like this, either—it's just the way I sometimes like to do prologues.**

**A/A/N: The new fanfiction setup (specifically, the character bit at the bottom) is really tripping me up. Like, if I want to read a Faberry fic (which I haven't in a while), I put in Rachel and Quinn. Simple as. But now, I put that in and get a whole bunch of crap, because they don't filter out the extra characters, so I might get stuck with a Finchel fic with Quinn playing the Evil Witch (tm) or some crap like that. Plus it looks kinda messy.**

**Please remember to review!**


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